Author Description

"How to Care for Your Parents" is a time-saving guide to help families successfully map and navigate the unfamiliar terrain of eldercare. Using a step-by-step approach, this to-the-point handbook provides simple decision-making tools that enable grown children to help their parents take charge of their long-term health, welfare, and housing needs. Nora Jean Levin gives you all the information you need to know in a concise, user-friendly format. She tells you how to step in and start helping without undermining your parents' dignity or independence, including how to talk to them about money. She shows how to organize your own time and energy for the many tasks ahead and how to use existing community resources to backstop your efforts. Levin gives tough practical advice on how to identify the right medical coverage and insurance, plan for legal and financial incapacity, and arrange for long-term care. Her recommendations on housing options range from "age-in-place" designs for disability to tips on downsizing and moving to an assisted living facility. A unique chapter on finding eldercare services through the information highway gives you the keywords and procedures to search and retrieve the riches of the World Wide Web and Internet. Finally, Levin describes significant features of Medicare/Medicaid legislation and helps you understand the effects of the proposed changes on you and your parents.